The Farr40s
February 3, 2016 Leave a comment
After nine days on the water and with some 34 races started and finished, that’s it for the Farr40s at Middle Harbour for this season. Next up for them is their World Championships also to be held here in Sydney but by the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. It’s been a hard but enjoyable couple of months out on the waters of Sydney Harbour. The volunteer race management team have again done a professional job with the Fleet happy with the racing provided.
As is usually the case, the typical weather conditions weren’t there. We had drifters and blows with only a few of the races in a nice summers NorEaster. From our view it was great racing and those who hadn’t watched how the Farrs line up and do their start were impressed, full speed and hiking right on the line as the flag’s dropped. Yes we had the odd individual and general recall but you have that in any fleet. As always there’s a few ‘bombed’ gate mark roundings, too late with the headsail hoist and/or spinnaker drops. We saw spinnakers go under the bow whilst leading, ending up with the boat having to back off in order to get it back on board. It’s always nice though too, to see the polished roundings, pole away and the brace hand held till the drop. The volunteers who come out now and again always pick up and ask ‘why do they do it that way?’. When you watch it week in and out, it’s routine, however those who only watch now and again pick up how the top crews do it. The start team of course are all experts.
Good luck to all the MHYC teams at the upcoming Pre Worlds and Worlds, I’m sure many will be on the podium.
Before the two final weeks of Farr40s, I had a weeks trip to Victoria in the DeckHardware van on another road/sales trip. This time I went via the coast, stopping on Saturday at Lake Wallagoot. It had been around a year since I’d been there running a Yachting Australia Race Officers course, so it was a chance to see what and how they implemented some of the ISAF/WS rules. Like most, for a small club they have a core band of enthusiasts taking it in turns to be the mark layer and starter for the day. Looks like I’ll be down there again in March as they’ve asked me to run their annual regatta.
On Sunday I headed in to Paynesville to drop off an order to Hills Marine. Of course there’s always new product to show.
From Monday through to Thursday, I went anti clockwise around Port Phillip Bay, seeing a range of customers both old and new showing some of the DeckHardware product lines. Thursday afternoon it was time to head north as there was some yacht racing on the following weekend. Another 2787 kms on the odometer.
In the coming weeks, there’s another lot of regattas. Some I’m officiating at and others where the DeckHardware van will be there in support.
Phil Yeomans 